Busy 2010 for Devon RNLI teams

Charity’s lifeguards faced their busiest season ever. South West lifeboats spent 2,000 hours at sea on emergency callouts.

It’s been another busy year for the volunteer lifeboat crews with the RNLI inshore lifeboats launching more than a thousand times and the crews of both the inshore and all-weather lifeboats putting to sea during the hours of darkness more than 600 times.

The busiest stations included Plymouth in Devon (107 launches), Torbay in Devon (90 launches). 

The RNLI’s lifeguards who patrol over 90 beaches across Cornwall, Devon and Dorset has their busiest season since the service started in 2001, and a 26% increase in incidents compared to 2009.

LISTEN HERE: Lifeguard Divisional manager Phil Hill

The busiest beaches were Perranporth in Cornwall (808 incidents), followed by Gwithian in Cornwall (590 incidents), Woolacombe in North Devon (544 incidents) and Bournemouth East in Dorset, where RNLI lifeguards dealt with 487 incidents. 

LISTEN HERE: Lifeguard Supervisor Matt Whitley

In total, the 35 lifeboat stations in the South West launched 1,552 times and rescued 1,559 people. RNLI lifeguards dealt with 12,946 incidents, assisting 14,703 people on the region’s beaches.

CLICK HERE: Find out how you can help the RNLI